Handful of Dreams Read online

  “Ah, Dad! Come on. She loves you?”

  “Love comes in many ways, David. And in her way, yes, she loves me.” He’d leaned across the table eagerly. “Come up to the beach house, David. Meet Susan. You’ll understand.”

  “No, Dad. I can’t tell you what to do, but I can’t come up and meet this … girl and be polite.”

  “David, she makes me happy.”

  “Then I’m glad.”

  Peter had left New York. His calls and his letters had been full of Susan. “Bought Susan a pair of emerald earrings the other day—they match her eyes. Hope I can get her to keep them,” or, “Susan and I flew over to Paris on the spur of the moment—just for dinner!”

  The next thing David knew, Susan had gone on the payroll as a personal companion. David had signed her checks out of the separate corporate account twice a month, and every time his fingers moved the pen across the paper, he’d been furious and ill and—a feeling totally alien to him—helpless.

  But somehow David had swallowed it all. And finally he had met her—or almost met her. He learned to just keep quiet when his father talked about her; he told Peter that the business kept him in the city—that, sure, he’d meet her sometime. Peter seemed happy with that.

  She had come into the city with his father, determined to see David alone, to bleed them further, it seemed. What else would she be doing in his office?

  He hadn’t wanted to look at her. When his secretary had led her in, he’d kept his eyes on the contracts on his desk.

  “David Lane?”

  “Yes. What do you want? If it’s more money you’re after, talk to my father. You’re his mistress—not mine.”

  He’d had a glass of water sitting there. The next thing he knew, it was splashing down his face. He’d started up with an astonished oath to see her sable-coated back disappearing through the door.

  He’d almost run after her, but then remembered that his father was growing older and that Peter loved her—though the love she returned was bartered and bought. Clenching his teeth, he sank back into his chair and mopped the water from his hair and face.

  Swallow it, swallow it all, he had cautioned himself painfully. And he had—until Peter had come to New York the next time. “Come on, David. Susan would love to meet you.”

  Susan has met me, David had thought. Apparently she’d had the good sense not to mention the meeting.

  Then he had exploded. “Don’t you understand, Dad? I love you! I just can’t watch it! It hurts to see you make a fool of yourself over some little bitch!” Immediately he’d been sorry. Not over his opinion; only because he really wouldn’t hurt his father in any way. “Oh, Dad, I didn’t mean …”

  Peter had been calm and dignified. “She isn’t a little bitch, David, and I’d appreciate your not saying so again.”

  “If she makes you happy, then fine. I just don’t want to meet her, okay?”

  “It’s not fine.” Peter had sighed. “I wanted so badly for you two to get to know each other. You’d be friends. She knows books, David. She writes. She’s good.”

  “Dad, please!” David had winced. Oh, Lord! The woman wasn’t just a parasitical whore, she wanted Peter to use his influence for her!

  “David—”

  “Okay, Dad. Sometime I’ll come up, okay?”

  And so the rift had been patched. And in the end David had promised to come to Maine for the Labor Day weekend.

  Except that his father hadn’t lived that long. A heart attack had claimed him—when he was with Susan.

  Susan, perfect Susan. She had telegrammed immediately following his father’s death to ask what funeral arrangements he wanted. He’d telegrammed back telling her to ship the body and then get the hell out.

  He had to tolerate her when his father was alive. But his father was gone now, and he didn’t ever want to see Susan.

  David took another long swig of the brandy, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead. Regrets … were they always part of grief? All Peter had wanted was a grandchild. Someone to toss on his knee. David had denied him that simple pleasure.

  “Not on purpose,” he whispered aloud. “Ah, Dad, I loved you! I would have been with you—”

  He started suddenly. He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard the doors, but now he did hear the click of heels on the polished wooden floor of the foyer.

  And then he was staring at a woman in the library doorway.

  She was as startled as he at the confrontation, but she was quicker to recover.

  He stared quite bluntly, his eyes narrowing speculatively. With contempt and dismay he realized that Susan Anderson was even younger than he had expected, not more than twenty-five. She was tall and slim, the height of fashion in a sleekly cut red suit, cream blouse, matching red felt-brim hat and heels. Her nails were as long as talons, blood-red to match the suit. Her hair was russet, which should have made the outfit awful, but it didn’t. It was swept cleanly from her features in some sort of a knot beneath her hat. Her eyes were green—the emerald his father had mentioned, David decided acidly—and her features were flawless: stubborn chin, wide, generous mouth; small nose.

  She was beautiful. The perfect sophisticated woman. She could sashay into any city office with that little nose in the air and attract the eyes of any man.

  But no, she had lit on his father like a smooth vulture. Her clothing should have been in the height of fashion—Peter Lane could afford the best.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. Even her voice was perfect. Melodious. How long had she practiced to get just that tone? “I had no idea that you were coming here. I wouldn’t have interrupted you.”

  “Interrupted?” he heard himself ask coolly.

  She flushed slightly. “I heard you … talking.”

  Everything in him seemed to explode. She’d been listening to him, heard him, in a private moment of grief. A moment that was his by right while she…

  And he was sitting here, tears still misting his eyes, a brandy bottle in his hand, his legs sprawled on the desk.

  He set the bottle on the desk carefully and deliberately, then swung his feet to the ground with the same painstaking care and stood, crossing his arms over his chest to keep his fingers from closing around her and shaking her. He made no pretense of disguising his scorn and distaste as his eyes perused her in a pointed study.

  “Did you forget something?” he demanded with quiet authority.

  “Forget something?” she echoed, a frown knitting her delicate, cleanly arched brows. She took a step into the room. “What do you mean?”

  David walked slowly around the desk, idly stroking his chin as he continued to survey her like meat at a market. “Oh, just idle curiosity,” he said. “You are Susan Anderson?”

  “Yes,” she snapped, no longer apologetic. “As you’re well aware. We’ve met before.”

  “Sorry, I’d forgotten.”

  He lifted his hands, forcing a pleasant smile. “I assume you forgot something. I thought you would have taken everything you wanted by now. But then, vultures do come back to the scene of the kill until the bones are picked clean, don’t they?”

  Susan couldn’t help but gasp at the razorlike edge of his attack. She hadn’t expected him to be pleasant, but neither had she expected such a vicious assault.

  But why not? she wondered bitterly. It was all she had gotten from him that time she had tried to…

  “What?” she demanded, her fingers clenching into fists at her sides as her temper soared.

  “Didn’t you get enough out of my father when he was living? Well, don’t worry about it. I’m sure he remembered you in his will. I’m not quite sure what your talents were with a man his age, but they must have been damned good. You were certainly one well-paid whore.”

  If David had known her, he might have been forewarned. Her eyes became a sizzling shade of lime when her temper—usually serene—snapped. But he didn’t know her. And so he was taken completely by surprise when she s
truck him.

  It wasn’t a ladylike slap. It was a full strike across his cheek that sent him reeling back a step in amazement.

  He took that step back to her, ignoring the ache in his jaw to bite his fingers into her shoulders. She made one attempt to wrench from his hold, found it impossible, and tossed her head back, meeting his gaze with one of crystal fury and contempt. Her cool glare angered him further; she’d used his father, carelessly half killed him with her penchant for expensive excitement.

  And she had the gall to defy him now!

  He gave her a little shake, clenching his teeth against the gamut of emotions that threatened his sense of control. The shake dislodged her perfect little hat; a stream of fiery rich hair, waving with the russet hue of a sunset, fell over her shoulders and down her back. That hair, tangling over his fingers, carried a subtle and haunting scent of perfume, like a drug that played upon the senses and made a man take pause, assessing her again, noting the elegant beauty of her features.

  He offered her a grim smile as her eyes widened with the slightest touch of alarm.

  “Miss Anderson, my father is dead now. I remember you attacking my manners once before. Well, sister, my manners are fine. I treat a lady like a lady. But you’re not a lady, Miss Anderson, not in my book. I call a young woman who attaches herself to a man for his money a whore. I—”

  The alarm was out of her eyes. They seemed almost yellow now with pure rage, and his sentence was interrupted by his own startled groan as she kicked him in the shin.

  David’s lips compressed ruthlessly. She wanted an all-out cat-fight, and she was going to get one. “Get your hands off of me, you arrogant bastard,” she cried.

  But she was interrupted this time by his movement. His ankle quickly shifted behind her own to lift her foot from the floor and send her flying down to it—with him quickly beside her, hands pressed to her arms with relentless force as he bent over her.

  “Miss Anderson, you are a regular little tigress, a huntress with all the wiles of the jungle. But I’ve had all I’m going to take from you. You attacked me once and walked away from it with your nose in the air. Not again—lady.” He sneered. “You see, my father is gone now. He’s not around to protect you anymore. So if you go at it with me, you’re going to get it right back.”

  She barely blinked; she just stared at him with hate in her eyes, her breasts rising and falling, her delicate jaw set with anger.

  “There’s not an ounce of your father in you,” she said at last, and the lilt in her voice made it the gravest insult he’d ever received.

  “No?” David inquired politely. “I really don’t think you were around long enough to tell. You knew and used a broken old man, Miss Anderson. You preyed upon him when he was weak and lonely and vulnerable. You should have known him in his prime, but then, you wouldn’t have, would you? Because he would have known you for what you are if he had met you in his younger days!”

  She returned his glare, undaunted by his words, and he had to admit that she had courage. She had to be aware that he knew she had brought on the heart attack that had killed his father, knew that he considered her little more than a cold-blooded murderess and deserved any violence the pain and tempest in him could deliver.

  But she still defied him, loathed him. Offered him no remorse, only her sizzling stare of smoldering scorn…

  Sizzling. Hot. Her whole body was warm, vibrant, and alive. And touching her, leaning over her … seeing her, he knew something of it. She was both slim and shapely. Narrow-waisted, full in the breasts, long and elegantly limbed. Kinetic with passion and anger, trembling, all her heat and fury shooting from the emerald sparks of her eyes…

  To David’s horror he found himself shuddering. The fire in her eyes raked his body. Incredulously he wanted her in a primal way that knew no logic or thought. His body grew tense and hot, then a pulsing sensation stirred in his groin.

  So this was it, he thought. This was the web that ensnared. This promise of sensuality, of a pleasure that was unique and heightened above any other, of a passion that was as wild as a tempest…

  He closed his eyes quickly, amazed that a man of his age and experience could be so touched by such a practiced huntress. He shook slightly again, disgusted with himself. His father’s mistress! And he was actually here with her, pinning her to the floor in fury, only to discover that he envied his father because he had known what it was to touch her, to fill his hands with the weight of her breasts, taste her lips, know the searing fulfillment of that promised fire….

  He released her suddenly, as if she had burned him. She barely seemed to notice but quickly folded her legs beneath her to sit, facing him like a spitting, wary cat.

  “I think I knew him far better than you did,” she said coolly. “I never considered him a fool, and I never thought of him as senile, which quite apparently, Mr. Lane, you did. And, for the record, I never ‘attacked’ you. I made an attempt once to discuss a matter of importance. You attacked—with verbal blades, intending to draw blood.”

  David sat back, idly lacing his fingers around his knees. “You don’t believe in calling a spade a spade, I take it?” he inquired.

  “Your arrogance and insolence are both incredible,” she returned after a moment’s disgusted surveillance of him. With natural grace she rose, then stared down at him. “It’s truly amazing that Peter could have created such a son.”

  She spun around. David was on his feet quickly, halting her with a sharp command as she reached the doorway. “Whatever it was you left behind, Miss Anderson, get it and get out.”

  She turned, smiling with a true glint of triumph and amusement. “Mr. Lane, I’m afraid that you’re the one who is going to have to get out.”

  “What’s your game now, Miss Anderson?”

  No woman could have appeared more innocent, more guilelessly enchanting as she stared back at him with that sweet smile still curving her lips.

  “The beach house is half mine, Mr. Lane. Check with your lawyers—your father left it to us.”

  No physical blow could have stunned him or hurt him with such thorough precision. He wasn’t aware that he moved; he didn’t even know that he had walked to her, gripped her elbow, and locked his fingers around it like steel shackles.

  “What?”

  His face had gone starkly pale; apparently she realized his menace at last when he was unaware of it himself, for a pallor touched her cheeks, making her eyes seem enormous, her lashes appear like a forest of fire and pitch around them.

  “My father left you an interest in this house?” he thundered.

  She tugged at her elbow. “Yes! Now get your hands off me. And if you touch me again, so help me, Mr. Lane, I’ll have a warrant sworn out against you!”

  He released her not because of the threat, but because he was too stunned to do otherwise. He wandered, dazed, back to the desk where he sat in the chair and picked up the brandy bottle. Heedless of her perusal, he drank deeply, then drank some more.

  And then he began to laugh, eyeing her afresh.

  “I have to hand it to you, Miss Anderson. I considered you a nuisance, a bloodsucking parasite, and a few other things. But I really underestimated you! You must be very good at what you do!”

  She kept smiling, the glitter of loathing touching the intriguing depths of her eyes once again, heightened by the array of dark and blazing hair that still fell, unheeded, in disarray around her.

  “I am very good,” she said blandly.

  “I still don’t believe it.”

  “Call your lawyers.”

  “I will.”

  Keeping his eyes locked with hers, David reached across the desk for the phone. In seconds he had tapped out his attorney’s number; in another few seconds he was talking to Barney Smith. Barney spent several long moments eulogizing Peter; David was grateful, but he cut Barney off a little quickly.

  “Barney, what’s the status with the beach house?”

  He knew she had been telling the tru
th when Barney cleared his throat uneasily.

  “Uh … joint ownership, David. It’s been left to you and Miss Anderson.” Barney cleared his throat again. “I tried to talk your father out of such a provision, David, but he insisted that it was her home and your birthright.”

  Barney was saying more. David didn’t hear him.

  “Thanks, Barney,” he murmured distractedly, and replaced the receiver.

  “I’ll be damned,” David whispered, rising and smiling crookedly at her without taking his eyes off her as he started toward her. It was as if something sacred had been touched. It had been his mother’s home; the family home. It was probably the only possession that had ever mattered to David. It was his childhood; his parents laughing; it was Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and Euripides and all the things that had been his parents. It was growing up; it was a reminder of youth, of the happiness and pain that comprised personal lives….

  He stopped right in front of her.

  “You conniving little whore!” he exclaimed softly.

  She stiffened. The smile slipped from her features to display saddened and weary features that, despite all his scorn and fury and pain, somehow touched him again. She was unique. So enchanting that even while a man despised her, he wanted to reach out and crush her against him and taste the sweet hint of passion that curved her lip….. She backed away from him. He smiled.

  “You are an insufferable bastard,” she retorted with a touch of uneasiness. “But you think what you like—I really don’t give a damn. You’re even welcome to say what you like. But touch me again and I’ll have the police on the phone.”

  He laughed bitterly. “If I were to touch you again, Miss Anderson, you wouldn’t be able to get the police on the phone.”

  He turned away from her, startled and dismayed by both the violence and tempest of his thoughts.